OLPC Give 1 Get 1 Campaign Extended

Fancy finding out how well the One Laptop Per Child, Give 1 Get 1 campaign is doing? I’ll give you a clue, the scheme’s end date has now been extended from the original 26th of November to the 31st of December. Too ambiguous enough for you? Okay, to date G1G1 has averaged sales of $2 million a day which means that around 5000 people a day have bought themselves an XO and at the same time donated one to a third world country.

In case you don’t remember, Give 1 Get 1 is a program whereby customers interested in owning an XO can do so, on the basis that they also pay for the cost of donating a second machine. The less benevolent way to look at is that the ‘$100 Laptop’ as it was intended to be (but is actually $200), becomes a $400 laptop – although T-Mobile is sweetening the deal for US customers by also bundling a years free wireless hotspot access, worth a fair chunk of cash in and of its own.

OLPC founder, Nicholas Negroponte, was understandably pleased with the rate at which his systems were being snapped up. ““In the past 10 days, we’ve experienced an outpouring of support from the public that is truly gratifying and encouraging. Because so many people have asked for more time to participate either individually or in order to organize local and national groups to which they belong, we have decided to extend Give 1 Get 1 through the end of this year.”

The scheme is currently only open to US residents, so we British types can’t participate. Critics of OLPC won’t be feeling so smug now I suspect.